1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a bioreactor for cell culturing, more particularly, to a device with cone-plate structure for cell culturing.
2. Description of Related Art
In general, the cell-culturing devices have been used to study the dynamic response of vascular endothelial cells to the shear stress from the fluid flow. Said cell-culturing devices mainly comprise a cone, a fixed plate and a culture dish placing on the fixed plate; wherein the cone top and a motor are connected to each other in order to drive the rotation of the cone. The distance h between the cone tip and the fixed plate is maintained at a very small value, and several round holes are made on the fixed plate to arrange the culture dishes in where the cells to be cultured can be evenly seeded. When the cells are cultured in the dishes, the height of the solution surface in the culture dishes is equal to the fixed plate surface. The liquid or the culturing solution placed in the cone-plate area is modulated according to the cone tip angle. The bigger the cone tip angle is, the more the solution is needed, and vice versa. Changing the cone tip angle and the rotating speed of said cone will create different intensity of the shear stress, which may affect the cells in the culture dish at the bottom.
As above-mentioned, the structure of prior art comprises the following disadvantages:
1. The structure orientation is performed by contacting the cone tip to the center of the fixed plate. However, the friction will occur when the cone is in the rotation mode with specific angular velocity and the cone tip and the fixed plate contact to each other, and this will result in some inaccuracy of the angular velocity of the cone. The decrease of the rotating speed will cause the cells in the culture dish fail to experience the expected shear stress and the quantity analysis of the cell culturing experiment cannot be accurately performed.
2. The friction will occur when main parts of the cell culturing device, i.e. cone and plate, contact to each other. This will result in the abrasion of the cone tip and thereby the shear stress value will not be the predetermined value. It will also increase the frequency of cone renewal in order to maintain the geometry of the cone with sharp tip and the accuracy of quantity analysis for cell culturing.
3. Several culture dishes are arranged in a small circular area on the fixed plate. The small area occupies around the outer region of fixed plate and is not able to be enlarged to process a cell culturing experiment in a larger scale.
Therefore, it is desirable to provide an improved method to overcome the aforementioned problems.